Antonia Oprita

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An international response is needed to the issue of the manipulation of the Libor to ensure that cartel behavior is not possible, Sharon Bowles, Liberal Democrat MEP for South East England and chair of the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, told CNBC on Friday.

There is a larger measure of agreement on solving the euro zone debt crisis, as everybody understands the seriousness of the situation, the IMF's first deputy managing director tells CNBC at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Western policymakers are "making fools" of themselves in the eyes of people in emerging markets as no initiative to end the euro zone crisis has emerged in more than two years, an economist told CNBC at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

European policymakers should come up with a sweeping solution to stop the spreading of the debt crisis sooner rather than later, to restore confidence to markets, participants in a panel organized by CNBC at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum said on Thursday.

Russia is taking steps to decrease its dependence on oil, with the government mulling a different formula for calculating the oil price for the state budget and measures to encourage other sectors of the economy to grow, Stanislav Voskresensky, Russian deputy minister of economic development, told CNBC.com on Thursday.

Russia's success in the eyes of foreign investors hinges on how the country will deliver on its promised privatization process – and officials present at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) were quick to reassure markets that they still mean business.

Russia's prospects are brighter than those of many other economies, despite fears that the return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency will slow the pace of structural reforms and falling oil prices could hurt its budget.

Investing is "unusually difficult" because of current uncertainties and there are some signs that the markets are pricing a "rare disaster" – but the situation is not as bad as it was in 2008, analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a market note.